Passing for Normal

Desperate to console his sobbing daughter, who was suddenly aware of her own mortality, Dave Prescott attempts to convey his views on the topic, and watches in horror as the conversation descends into farce...

One day, Dave Prescott was driving along in his car, late for something really important, "when I saw one of these signs and it made me stop and perform a dangerous U-turn. Under normal circumstances I would have driven past, confident in the fact that I already had eggs, for example, or didn’t need runner beans. But this time the sign offered more."

"For a while now" begins Dave Prescott in a brilliant new piece "I have been looking for someone with the time, skill and interest to help me grow oyster mushrooms on a straw-stuffed chair, in order to install it without explanation as a piece of living art in my local high street."

A few days ago, Dave Prescott found himself facing what seemed to be a critical decision: should he spend his weekend, as planned, planting onions, or should he fly across mainland Europe to represent a corporate client at a progressive big summit? In the first installment of his new column, Prescott recounts what happened next.